WAM Theatre to Host Reading of THE OREGON TRAIL, 6/19

WAM Theatre has announced the cast for the third in their 2016 Fresh Takes Play Reading Series, The Oregon Trail by Bekah Brunstetter, directed by Estefanía Fadul. The reading will take place on Sunday, June 19 at 3 pm at No. Six Depot Roastery and Café, 6 Depot Street in West Stockbridge, MA.

Fresh Takes takes pride in introducing new faces and emerging artists to Berkshire audiences. With the exception of Zoe Laiz, who has appeared in Fresh Takes Readings in 2014 and 2015, the rest of the cast are making their WAM Theatre debut. The cast of The Oregon Trail features Kaleigh Cerqua (Theatre Institute at Sage's The Trojan Women and The Wizard of Oz) as Then Jane; Caleb John Cushing (Classics @ the Point's The Glass Menagerie The Theater Barn's Moon Over Buffalo) as Billy; Zoe Laiz (WAM's Water By The Spoonful, Shakespeare & Company's Twelfth Night) as Jane; John Romeo (Theatre Institute at Sage's Christmas Carol, Saratoga Shakespeare Company's Macbeth) as Clancy; and Kate Washington (Shakespeare & Company's Fall Festival, Austen Riggs Center's King Lear ) as Mary Ann. For detailed information on the cast go to: http://www.wamtheatre.com/the-orgeon-trail/

A tale of two young women, both named Jane. One is an awkward middle schooler with body odor and epic skills for The Oregon Trail computer game. The other Jane is the woman in the game, living through the hardships of trail life with her family. Looking at the impact of memory and the legacy of sadness across generations, the play weaves parallel stories of survival, and asks the age-old question - do you want to ford the river? WAM is proud to present Brunstetter's funny, imaginative and poignant play, which had it's world premiere at the 2015 Women's Voices Theatre Festival in Washington DC.

Fadul is also making her WAM Theatre and Berkshire area debut. "We are so excited to have Estefanía directing for WAM," said WAM Co-Founder and Artistic Director Kristen van Ginhoven. "I met her when we participated in the Lincoln Center Theatre Lab together a few years back. She's a 2015 Fall Fellow of the Drama League Directors Project, a 2014-15 Van Lier Fellow at Repertorio Español, and the founding artistic director of Pleiades Productions. We are catching her as she emerges into what promises to be an outstanding career in theatre."

"The Oregon Trail is so wonderfully quirky- in the language, the characters, and even the structure. Bekah Brunstetter has created a unique world that is at once real and imaginary, human and technological," Fadul said, "I also strongly believe in WAM's mission to support the work of women artists in the theatre. My own work is very focused on women's stories or plays that feature three-dimensional, complex female characters. Companies like WAM are integral to supporting female voices and making our stories -which have traditionally been underrepresented on stage- accessible to an audience of women and men alike."

Since 2014 the Fresh Takes series has been introducing Berkshire audiences to ground-breaking works by established women playwrights, focusing on relevant, provocative, uplifting plays that encourage dialogue and deal with current and controversial issues in artful ways. The 2016 Fresh Takes season is sponsored by No. Six Depot and Kristin and James Hatt.

After The Oregon Trail, the Fresh Takes Series continues with Samsara by Lauren Yee on August 21; and Grand Concourse by Heidi Shreck, directed by Sheila Siragusa, on September 11.

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